A community‑wide GNC challenge hosted at the ESA GNC & ICATT 2026

The Last Click Competition is a community‑wide Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) challenge organized by the Inter‑Agency GNC Verification & Validation Working Group. Given the regional coverage of the Working Group, the competition is open to entities from the following regions: European Space Agency Member States, Associated Member States, and Cooperating Member States, and the United States of America. It will be hosted during the 13th ESA Conference on Guidance, Navigation & Control Systems (GNC) and the 10th International Conference on Astrodynamics Tools and Techniques (ICATT), taking place in Sevilla, Spain, 28 September - 2 October 2026.

About the Competition

The last Click Competition invites industry and academia to confront a shared, high-fidelity benchmark problem.

Its purpose is to:

Encourage knowledge transfer between research and operational GNC communities
Build confidence in modern GNC algorithms when applied to realistic, non-academic scenarios
Provide a common ground for comparing methods, assumptions, and performance

Important for all Teams

To participate in the Last Click Competition, teams must register their team name via the submission portal by 31 March to avoid losing points.Teams that register their team name after this date may still do so when submitting their team solution by 31 May, but they will incur a penalty score.

Click the Submit Your Solution button on this page to access the portal.

Submit Your Solution

Mission Scenario: the Last Chance to Find Life

In the year 2370, humanity's most ambitious deep-space observatory drifted silently beyond Pluto's orbit. It's name was NERINA - a next generation telescope with:

Mirror petals forged from self-healing crystal alloys
Bio-engineered photonic sensors capable of tasting straight
A singular mission: capture the first clear image of the distant galaxy NGC-9214.

Scientists believed this faint spiral galaxy might host a rare class of bio-luminescent exoplanets. Their spectral signatures could reveal thriving alien ecosystems.

But catastrophe struck. NERINA is tailing. Power is fading. This is humanity's last chance to search for life beyond Earth.

Your algorithms will decide whether the mission succeeds.

Key Dates

Benchmark Problem Published & Competition Opens: Sunday, 1 February 2026
Submission Portal Live: Mid February 2026
Team Registration Deadline (No Score Penalty): Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Late Registration Deadline (With Score Penalty): Sunday, 31 May 2026
Submission Deadline for all Solutions: Sunday, 31 May 2026
Announcement of Winners: Early July 2026
Winners Present at ESA GNC & ICATT Conference: 28 September - 2 October 2026

European Satellite Benchmark in Control Education & Industrial Training

The competition is based on the European Satellite Benchmark, freely available under an ESA public license.

Access the benchmark and supporting material click HERE (essr.esa.int)

Note: Participants are strictly prohibited from using brute-force approaches or purely AI-generated solutions. Each submission must be accompanied by a mandatory technical document describing the original methodology and design choices. This document will for an integral part of the final evaluation and will be used to determine the competition winner

Contact

If you are interested in participating or have questions regarding the competition, the organizers welcome inquiries.

For benchmark specific questions, please contact:
francesco.sanfedino@isae.fr

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